A Case of Sirius Neglect? (was Re: Sirius - who is right?)

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 74284

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "darkkitten2" 
<darkkitten at m...> wrote:

<snip a lot of excellent discussion of Sirius and his travails>

> I really thought things were going to improve for Sirius there for 
a while at the 
> beginning of OotP. As someone else pointed out (Marina, I think?) 
it really wouldn't 
> have taken all that much to make Sirius less unhappy, just some 
kind of useful task 
> he could do for the Order without leaving the house, not to 
mention some 
> companionship. But again, Sirius is neglected. Not maliciously; 
he's just overlooked. 
> No one has time to notice (with the continuing exception of Harry 
perhaps) that Sirius 
> is still in no shape to manage his life entirely on his own. 
Sirius has been through 
> awful physical and mental trauma, and no matter how much he hates 
the fact, he is in 
> need of help before he can strengthen and repair himself. Sadly, 
he never gets it.
> 

It does kind of make me wonder about the wizarding world's (and 
Dumbledore's in particular) understanding of psychology.  When Harry 
returns from the graveyard in GoF, Dumbledore acted as someone 
familiar with the concept of trauma.  His insistence that Harry 
should talk about what happened as quickly as possible reminded me a 
lot of the "After Action Debriefings" that the US military holds for 
soldiers after combat situations in order to help reduce risk of 
PTSD.  Yet his attitude toward Sirius makes me wonder if he simply 
made Harry talk because he wanted the information right away, and 
not from any concern for Harry's mental state.  Because in OOP, 
Dumbledore behaves af if he thinks there's nothing wrong with Sirius 
that a bit of willpower and common sense couldn't cure.  This is a 
very old-fashioned attitude toward mentall illness (though God knows 
it still exists in modern times), and the wizarding world *is* old-
fashioned in many ways.  It's possible that Dumbledore meant no 
neglect, that he just really didn't understand the problem.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com